
When a high-achieving person realizes his own industry is desperately in need of reform, he will resolutely keep pushing for sensible changes.
Captain Phillip Beall, a pilot with a major commercial carrier for 38 years now, is just such a steadfast person. After the horrifying terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he focused in on practical solutions to prevent similar tragedies, which begins with allowing pilots and co-pilots, the very men and women we already trust with our lives when we step on board, the chance to further defend our lives with concealed sidearms.
Here is his story of perseverance—one he gives great credit to this association for being able to accomplish—in his words.
A1F: Were you in the air on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001?
Beall: I was not. But, at the time, I was actually an officer with the Allied Pilots Association, the pilot union of my carrier. That morning, I was up early working on some paperwork. My wife came in and turned on the TV set. And I was like, “Why’d you turn the TV on?” And she said an airplane had hit the World Trade Center.
About that time, I saw the second airplane hit the second tower. I jumped up and yelled to my wife, “Oh, my God, we’re at war.”
A1F: I was in Midtown Manhattan on that horrible morning. I remember screaming at the time, “Wait a second. Why aren’t these pilots able to do something about this? Why aren’t the cockpits locked? And why aren’t they armed and so able to fight back?”
Beall: Exactly. Arming pilots was a topic I had already advocated for. I was a part-time law-enforcement officer reservist for Dallas County, Texas. Even when I was a co-pilot back in the mid-eighties, I used to jokingly tell the captains I was flying with that if they just had one of those break-glass-and-retrieve-this-in-case-of-a-hijacking boxes on board, you know, with a firearm in it, I could keep anything really bad from happening.”
But regulators had spent the last couple of decades tightening up on firearms on board airplanes. Up to the 1950s at least, if there was first-class mail on the aircraft, the captain had to be armed. But slowly that had been picked away to the point where almost nobody was carrying a firearm.
So then, just two days after Sept. 11, we had a conference call with the FAA and some other people in government. As one of the heads of a pilot union, I was there to help with ideas to stop these sorts of attacks.
I advocated for allowing persons like myself, who were part-time law-enforcement or people who were in the military, to have a way to qualify to fly armed. After some amount of telephone debate, this idea was advanced at that meeting. But, of course, the FAA people said, “Absolutely not.”

A1F: You said you next called the NRA for lobbying help.
Beall: My wife, Kathy, and I are friends with Sandy Froman [NRA board member and former NRA president], but I initially tried to go through channels. When the pilot union’s board of directors got together on the Saturday following the events of Sept. 11, I advanced a motion that stated that the Allied Pilots Association supported a program to train and certify pilots to carry firearms while flying.
After some debate, it passed. The next day I was approached by others in leadership positions within the pilot union asking if I would head up the effort. My initial reaction was great reluctance because I already was a full-time airline pilot and I was also a part-time law-enforcement officer. I hardly thought I had the time to take on what I thought would be a very challenging endeavor. But they prevailed upon me to go ahead and tackle the project. So, I spoke with our two lobbyists. They were a couple of former Department of Transportation people who had last worked in the White House under the Carter administration. They were pretty clueless about how to get this accomplished. So, I also tried calling my own representative’s office. I couldn’t get anybody to even return my call. So, I called Sandy, and she quickly jumped into action and coordinated support with the rest of the NRA’s leadership.
The NRA knows how to get things like this done, so we were on our way. This is why people join the NRA. The NRA advocates for their freedom, and this is a critical component of it.
A1F: But you noted that, in the beginning, the Air Line Pilots Association was somewhat opposed, if not completely opposed, to arming pilots.
Beall: So, that would be the big pilot union that advocates for two or three airlines that are similar in size to the carrier I fly for. They did testify that they “couldn’t be both Sky King and Wyatt Earp.” I don’t know if this individual was personally projecting or if that was a position that was prevailed upon him, but I knew that I could fly the airplane and defend myself. And so we quickly set about to become the chief advocate for arming pilots.
We all worked together with the NRA to do something no one thought we could do. There was not one person who told me, “Hey, you know what? I think you’re going to be able to knock this one out of the park.” But with the NRA’s help, we were able to get it done.
With the NRA’s help, I was on radio and television programs like MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews and Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes. I think that it was really important for us to have those types of media appearances, because it helped us keep the issue in front of the flying public.
The NRA’s communication was so effective that I had kind of an awkward situation develop where I was on an elevator with my crew headed to a layover hotel and a guy and a woman were just staring holes in me. Finally, the guy says, “Are you that pilot that’s trying to get the law passed to allow pilots to be armed while they fly?” And I said, “Yes, sir, I am.” And we shook hands and chatted for a minute. They were very supportive.
A1F: How long did it take for the Federal Flight Deck Officer Program effort to become law?
Beall: There was actually a law passed just a few months after we initially advanced our support for a program like this, but it was flawed. The flaw being that it allowed airline management to determine whether they wanted a pilot, some pilots or all of their pilots to be in the program or not. And so, with that permission, there was not a single airline that adopted the provision. Even if you had airline management who were supportive, and we did have some airline management that were supportive at my carrier in particular, the problem was, with this feature in the law, it would make the airline potentially liable if there was any kind of a mishap.
We had to craft a new law. This required a great deal of participation by subject-matter experts. I’m talking about retired FBI staff lawyers. We hired a law-school professor who’d argued before the Supreme Court many times. We hired a team. It wound up taking us about two years before we got the law passed.
And even then, we had people with the Transportation Security Administration who were not supportive. They threw roadblocks in our way. They implemented policies and procedures that were not required by the law.
I was actually surprised at how many pilots we had who were current or former law-enforcement officers. I’m talking local, state and federal law-enforcement officers. There was everything from local guys working traffic stops, to SWAT team commanders to people who were in federal agencies. And many of those people did yeoman’s work to get this done.
A1F: So, after two years, the law passes and then a training program starts? What is that training like?
Beall: I can divulge some things about it. It was actually designed by the FBI. The FBI anticipated that they were going to be the agency charged with administering the program. They told their firearms-training unit to develop a program quickly and to get it up and running so that, if the president tells us to do it, it can get started like yesterday.
So, we had a lot of support behind the scenes. We didn’t even know about all of it until I started getting phone calls and I started getting things in the mail from people from Washington, D.C., or Herndon, Va. Meanwhile, there were bureaucrats who were calling us amateurs who wanted to hire 100,000 Federal Air Marshals, rather than have armed airline pilots.
Now, just about everybody is in agreement that this is the most economical federal program ever in the existence of our federal government. Initially, the cost per mission for an airline pilot, fully allocated, was about $15 per flight. It’s much more than that to have a Federal Air Marshal on board.
But I’m an advocate of Federal Air Marshals. We should have as many of them as we can afford. But what I told these senators when I was in these meetings with them, oftentimes one-on-one with them and a chief of staff or a legislative aide, is that taxpayers can’t afford to have two Federal Air Marshals in first class on every flight that we operate. It’s just too many people. It’s too much revenue lost. Part of the solution was going to be you’re always going to have a pilot on the airplane, so let’s get them armed.
A1F: I’ve spoken to U.S. Air Marshals before, and they’ve told me they have to fly in coach. Flying in coach for a living doesn’t sound like a fun occupation to me. And then, if I’m going to take the terrorist point of view for a minute, finding the U.S. Air Marshal seems easier to me than getting through the cockpit door to get an armed pilot.
Beall: Moving Air Marshals out of first class and back into coach had to do with expenses. I don’t know whether it was lost revenue to the airline or if it was the federal government, but the truth of the matter is, I want them as close to the cockpit door as possible. First class is generally closest to the cockpit door. Having them there made perfect sense. It was purely an economic decision, I am almost certain, to move them back to coach. I see no tactical advantage.
We always advocated that arming pilots is one of the many layers of defense. We’ve got Federal Air Marshals on some flights. We’ve got hardened cockpit doors. We’ve got enhanced screening. We have armed pilots.
A1F: Going forward, is this program in danger of being lost to gun-control politics?
Beall: Well, to be clear, one of the standard operating tenets is that the participant in the program cannot divulge that they participate in that program. And I can’t confirm or deny whether I’m in the program. What I can tell you is that during the Obama administration, there was a move to defund this program.
A1F: Thank you for all your advocacy and all you’re doing to keep us safe.
Beall: I give a lot of credit to the NRA. They opened doors for us. And, if we need help, we know we’re going to be able to turn to the NRA and have them be an advocate for us, as they serve their millions of members.